Cheltenham horses ‘stranded at sea’ amid travel chaos day before festival begins

Horses travelling to the Cheltenham Festival experienced potentially jeopardising delays on the eve of the meeting.

This year’s festival begins on Tuesday, but travel chaos has disrupted the plans of many competitors making the journey from Irish capital Dublin.

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As reported by the Racing Post, a broken down ferry ramp caused a backlog of arrivals at the Welsh port town of Holyhead on Sunday.

Many of the horses set to feature at Cheltenham were travelling on the Irish Ferries-operated Ulysses.

Ulysses finally docked at Holyhead, six hours past its scheduled time.

The Racing Post therefore claimed that the horses were ‘stranded at sea’ whilst waiting for the delays to subside.

Customs agent Ben Skilbeck, who works for horse transport agency Bramhams of Buckingham, offered an insight into the travel chaos.

“Yesterday was the busiest day of horses coming in for Cheltenham and the Ulysses had a number of horses for Cheltenham on,” he told the outlet.

“It is so big that it could only unload at Holyhead and couldn’t be diverted.

“The ferry left at 7:30am and should have disembarked comfortably by midday yesterday, but it was 6pm by the time those horses came off backwards as that was the only way to get the ferry in.

“With horses trained to be in such peak condition for Cheltenham it is certainly not ideal for them, put it that way.”

He also revealed that other horses faced an extra ‘three or four hours’ in travel time as their ferry for Holyhead was diverted to Liverpool.

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“I was liaising with drivers and there was a general acceptance that they were all literally in the same boat and it wasn’t a great situation, but there was not much anyone could do,” Skilbeck added.

Some horses have diverted onto the alternative route of Rosslare to Pembroke amid continued delays to crossing times.

Skilbeck explained on Monday: “Today is the last day for horses coming across for Cheltenham, so the horses for the races and the sales should be over tonight at the latest.

“We are diverting everything that way and have block bookings for the journey. Irish Ferries have been making horses crossing the priority over the likes of freight.”

The BBC say that the travel disruption has also affected Welsh rugby fans following their 27-17 Six Nations defeat to Ireland in Dublin.

Delays and cancellations have affected ferries travelling between the Irish capital and Holyhead amid ‘extraordinary reasons’.

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Cheltenham Festival 2026: How to follow

One of the most popular events in the British sporting calendar is the Cheltenham Festival.

Fans are preparing for four days of horse racing action from Tuesday to Friday, including the coveted Gold Cup.

talkSPORT will have live coverage of all the action from Cheltenham.

Lee McKenzie, Emmet Kennedy and Tony McCormick will provide live commentary of every race on talkSPORT 2, with coverage of the first five races of each day also available to listen to on talkSPORT.

To listen to talkSPORT or talkSPORT 2 through our website, click HERE for the live stream. Listen via the talkSPORT app, on DAB digital radio, through your smart speaker and on 1089 or 1053 AM.

talkSPORT.com will also keep you up to date with race-by-race updates and reaction in our dedicated Cheltenham live blog HERE.

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ITV will be broadcasting the festival on televisions, with the races also being streamed on ITVX.

You can check out the current odds for the Cheltenham Festival at talkSPORT BET.